RV Electricity – Just Ask Mike (J.A.M.): What are inverters and converters?

Welcome to my J.A.M. (Just Ask Mike) Session, a weekly column where I answer your basic electrical questions. If you’re a newbie who’s never plugged in a shore power cord (or ask – what’s a shore power cord?), or wonder why your daughter’s hair dryer keeps tripping the circuit breaker, this column is for you. Send your questions to Mike Sokol at mike (at) noshockzone.org with the subject line – JAM.

Dear Mike,

I’m a newbie so please be gentle with me. I keep hearing about inverters and converters, but I’m confused as to the difference. Can you explain what they are in simple language?

Thanks… Tony

Dear Tony,Yes, RV terminology can be very confusing for a newbie. After all, your house doesn’t have a converter or an inverter or house batteries. In a house you just plug in and go. But in an RV you have to think about running from 120-volt AC power or 12-volt DC power, and that’s where inverters and converters come in.

Basically, most of the smaller gadgets in your RV (interior lighting, television, ventilation fans, water pump, etc.) all run from 12 volts DC. Yes, this is exactly like the 12 volts DC from your car battery that powers the headlights, radio, blower motor, etc. And your car has a way to recharge its battery whenever the engine is running. This is called the alternator, which is belt-driven from the engine. Without an alternator to recharge your car battery it would soon be dead.

Your RV does something similar, with a 12-volt DC battery (called the house battery) and a set of fuses and/or circuit breakers to feed power to your fans, lights, television, etc. But instead of an alternator driven by the car engine to recharge this house battery, at the minimum you’ll have something called a converter. Its job is to take 120 volts AC from the pedestal or outlet that your shore power cord is plugged into, and convert it down to 12 volts DC or so (actually, a little closer to 14 volts, but who’s counting?). This is so that it can do two things: recharge your house battery (or batteries), and provide power to run the aforementioned 12 volt DC accessories such as your interior lights, fans, etc. With me so far?

Now, not all of your RV accessories will run from 12 volts DC. Some insist on needing 120 volts AC at 60 Hz to operate, just like you get from a wall outlet in your home. One big example would be the new residential refrigerators showing up in many RVs lately. If your RV is plugged into shore power it’s no big deal. But what if you’re boondocking (camping without campground electricity or water supply) and don’t want to start up a generator for 120-volt AC power?

Since these bigger appliances won’t run on 12 volts DC directly from your house battery, you need something that will “invert” the 12 volt DC battery power into 120 volt AC power. And yes, it’s called an inverter. Its job is to make 120 volts for the larger appliances in your RV – that might also include things like your microwave oven and large-screen television. However, there’s no practical way to be able to afford enough batteries in a normal RV to run a rooftop air conditioner for more than 10 or 20 minutes before the battery goes dead (maybe up to 60 minutes with a large battery bank).

So, a “converter” converts the 120-volt AC power from the campground pedestal into 12 volts DC to charge your RV’s house battery (or batteries) as well as run all of your DC appliances. An “inverter” does the opposite and inverts the 12-volts DC from the RV’s house battery into 120-volts AC that bigger appliances such as your residential refrigerator and maybe your microwave oven can use.

But don’t go crazy with running lots of appliances at once when you’re operating on battery power alone since you’ll soon run out of juice.

Hope this helps.

OK, everyone. Remember that electricity is a useful and powerful force, so we all need to pay attention to safety precautions while using it.

Let’s play safe out there….

Mike Sokol is an electrical and professional sound expert with 40+ years in the industry. His excellent bookRV Electrical Safety is available at Amazon.com. For more info on Mike’s qualifications as an electrical expert, click here.

I allow to use my email address and send notification about new comments and replies (you can unsubscribe at any time).

Jim Armstrong

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

What is the difference between portable generators? We have a unit that we can hook up to the house in case of a power outage. It is portable (on wheels) and we were thinking taking it in the camper when we travel. It is a little noisy though. I see a lot of smaller units that are quieter and lighter and dont put out as much current but was wondering what the difference is? Perhaps you could do an episode on this. thanks I enjoy your issues. Jim

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

7 months ago

Maria

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

We just purchased a 24 inch Bosch dryer and wondering if we change the plug to a 3-prong, can we use a step up step down converter to plug in or do we need to have an electrician rewire the RV for the 240v service? I read your first article regarding residential dryers but was unable to find the follow up that may answer the above question. Thank you for your response and for writing articles even I can understand!

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

7 months ago

WEB

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

I had read your RV Electricity – RV fire safety THIA interview: Part 1 of June 29, 2019 and never could find the Part 2. I looked for the promised YouTube interviews and found zilch… Where are the updates to the THIA products?
I think the product has very limited applications, but want to see what you had found.
Thanks

Stay cool

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

8 months ago

Terry Treman

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

Thank you, Mike, I find your articles fascinating and very helpful.
We have a small trailer with a small Dometic fridge. It has three settings; AC, DC, and Gas (propane). It has been my understanding that, in fact, all three use DC power to cool in some way. If I’m driving it runs off the house battery, if I’m stopped and off the grid, it’s either using house battery or propane, and if I’m using propane, it’s also using the house battery to run the cooling fans and to ignite the burner.
Does that sound correct?

Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

We are going to upgrade to a 5th wheel in the future. We now have a refrigerator that runs on electric and gas TT. My question is if we get a residential refrigerator in our new RV will it run while traveling? If not how do people keep things cold?

Search by tag/topic

Follow us!

This website utilizes some advertising services. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Regardless of this potential revenue, unless stated otherwise, we only recommend products or services we believe provide value to our readers.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you consent to accepting cookies. To our readers: We NEVER have or will sell reader's data. And we also ensure that any third parties we contract with either anonymize your data or have strict privacy policies in place that are aligned with ours.OkPrivacy policy